It was the height of summer, and two weeks after her coronation, when Ibis set out for Shalashar.

  The carriage bumped and rattled as it went; harsh desert sunlight filtered down through bamboo-cut blinds, reaching the occupants within as little more than slanted and flickering cords of white. The air here was thick and hot, and altogether every bit as dry as any Vokian winter. From beyond this juddering enclave came the combined chatter of oh-so-many winged insects, their volume cresting and sinking like the ceaseless motion of the tides.

  The Empress of Vokia was sprawled out across the couch like a long and languid cat—or perhaps a reptile, basking contentedly upon a warm rock—as she rested her head upon Panther's lap and gazed up, to Panther and the ceiling both, with eyes like wide pools of burnished silver. Panther herself sat stock-straight and rigid, with hand never straying far from the hilt of her sword. Her eyes flicked one way or another with every one of the carriage's wayward bumps, always returning back to Ibis's in time but always, inevitably, being pulled away once more by some new potential threat.

  "You're so tough..." Ibis muttered, her fingers tracing idly along the contours of her bodyguard's upper bicep. The severity of the desert heat had seen Panther opt for a sleeveless version of her usual ensemble; this in turn absolutely delighted the newly-crowned Empress, who had seen fit to mention as much no less than eleven times in just two days of travel. Panther herself felt somewhat rather oddly exposed (in a way she could not exactly articulate), though that was perhaps simply the pervading emotion of the whole venture altogether. "Are you aware of that fact, Panther? Do I tell it to you enough?" asked Ibis, batting her eyelashes in such a manner that Panther's gaze was inexorably drawn back in. This technique was always successful, much to Panther's longstanding frustration.

  "You're in a good mood," Panther noted, dryly, rather than directly respond.

  "Are you not?" Ibis chuckled.

  "I'm worried, Ibis. Are you not?"

  "What—worried?" Ibis blinked, in blank incomprehension. "Of course not. Why would I be?"

  "Why wouldn't you be? We're in the heart of enemy territory here, and you insisted on bringing barely even a dozen guards." Panther turned away, at once, to peer out one of the many ever-shifting window slits. And then she added, softer: "We're still at war, you know."

  "Only by technicality," said Ibis at once, waving the other woman's concerns right away. "In the real world, Panther, the war is dead and done. I've buried it. And besides, the Shalasharans wouldn't dare kill me. Taro might not much care for his half-sister—" Panther snorted at that, "—but he'd take literally any excuse to start the invasion anew. Blood-crazed fool that he is."

  "Still," Panther said, after some fraught and silent musing, "you're about to negotiate the most important truce of our lives."

  "Indeed."

  "And you've been Empress for all of one week."

  "Two weeks," Ibis corrected, with a pair of fingers to make further clear the distinction.

  "You know," Panther went on, ignoring said correction, "the morning before a duel, I'm always doing something. Drills, stretches, checking my gear. I always make full use of my time. "

  "I bet you don't even need to do all that," Ibis mused, finger still tracing along the bodyguard's upper arm. "I mean, look at you. You're so tough. And intense. And so incredibly serious about every little—"

  "Ibis."

  "Panther."

  "Take this seriously. Please." The bodyguard looked down upon her Empress, and her usually-stoic expression was now marred by something that only Ibis could have recognized as fear. "You really don't want to warm up for this thing? Not even a little?"

  "I'll be fine, my love," Ibis reassured. The Empress looked back up at Panther then, and in that moment her eyes were all but twinkling with excitement. With avarice. "Seriously. I've been warming up for months. Everything I need is right up here—" she tapped the side of her skull, "—and none of it ever leaves me, you understand? Ever. I can't tell you how many nights I've spent 'warming up' even as I'm falling asleep. Panther, I literally dream about this stuff. I can't even guess at how many hours I've spent thinking on this truce. You have no idea—" she smiled, and pointed a finger, "—just how much space this day has been occupying in my brain. You don't even know—"

  "Alright, alright," Panther cut in, with exaggerated long-suffering. "I get it. You are the world's most beautiful, perfect genius, and you have literally everything figured out. Forever. Until the end of time."

  "Right on all counts," Ibis grinned, with two clicks of her tongue. And then: "Look, Panther, would you like to know how I'm really feeling right now? Honestly?"

  "I'd love to."

  "Right now, the way I'm feeling..." Ibis declared, trailing off, her eyes once more brimming with an almost childlike excitement. "I'm feeling like all the hard and boring work is finally done. And today, Panther, you have to understand—this is the part that I actually enjoy."

  There was, unsurprisingly, quite a spectacle awaiting the Empress's arrival.

  It was Panther who stepped out from the carriage first; Panther who stepped out into that sun-scorched dry air, whose eyes were immediately narrowed by the sheer overwhelming luminescence of it all. And it was Panther who first beheld it: a towering black-and-white ziggurat, a monument equal parts brutalist geometry and flowing, disorientingly-organic architecture. A sextet of promontory towers rose like clawed fingers grasping for the skies above; the city surrounding was a whole labyrinth of bleached stone and brilliant-colored awnings that sprawled out in all directions for as far as the eye could see. A lone vulture perched high overhead, hunched and hooded, and gazed down upon it all—upon Shalashar, the oldest-recorded city in all of Xon—and upon all the little lives dwelling within.

  The vulture was unimpressed. But, then again, no vulture is ever really impressed.

  Ahead, atop a series of purple-carpeted stairs, there stood no less than three of the four Shalasharan Primarchs. At the front was Ralan Qelas, that black-bearded and broad-shouldered slab of a man, observing the proceedings with eyes concealed behind a pair of opaque red-lensed spectacles. At his left was an irritable Elket Qelas, clad in full armor, whose hand rested warningly and at all times upon her blade. To his right, a slouching Yauju Daret, whose fingers drummed impatiently upon his thighs and whose own eyes were, as well, shielded from the primary star by a pair of black-tinted glasses. These three titans of Shalashar were joined at the podium by two others—by a muscular young man clad only in a pair of baggy black pants, whose intricate full-body tattoos marked him as a Sorcerer of profound strength, and by a dead-eyed young woman with stitch-scars displayed prominently upon her forehead. And even they were flanked by no less than two hundred Shalasharan partisans, marked as such by their crimson robes and distinctive T-visored helms. Two hundred Shalasharan spear-tips pointed right to the sun as a mere ten Vokian Sathai took up positions of their own—the sun glinting in blinding coronas off their burnished brass armor, in sharp contrast to their pitch-dark capes that billowed in the torrid desert wind. Right hands were placed upon sword-hilts in what Vokians called the ready position; now, every one of the Sathai stood at perfect attention, and Panther stepped just to the side, as the carriage door swung open once more. And then, of course, it was the Empress of Vokia—the single most powerful individual in the entire continent of Xon—who emerged.

  She didn't look much like an Empress. At all. That was what most were thinking in that moment. The supreme ruler of mighty, muscular Vokia—the land of industry and artifice, of hammer and anvil, of a slow death in a freezing cell—was nothing more than a skinny young woman. Her complexion—already pale, even for a Vokian—had turned all but spectral beneath the blinding Shalasharan sun, in contrast to that shock of fire-red hair crowning her skull. Even her garb was unusual; she had foregone the traditional robes and dresses of a Vokian Empress in favor of simple trousers tucked into high-rising boots, and a tucked-in and starch-pressed tunic to follow—all of it cast in deep Vokian navy-blue, all of it accented by subtle highlights of saffron and crimson. From a distance she might easily have been mistaken for some form of military officer or even a particularly well-dressed servant; certainly she carried on her person not one hint of the opulence befitting the richest and most powerful nation-city.

  There was no preamble, no formal declaration of names or titles. The Empress just started forward with not a word, boots clicking in deliberate rhythm against the beautifully-adorned tile mosaic below. The Sathai did not move—but Panther did, taking up her place just slightly behind and to the left of her newly-elevated mistress and secret lover. The two moved as one; Panther noticed the eyes of Elket Qelas—the warlord, the Second Pillar, the legendary swordswoman—lingering upon her for just a moment, before returning to the Empress at hand. For her part, Panther just kept her face deadpan-calm as always, and did as the Empress had trained her to do: she made herself at once a part of the background and yet still keenly, keenly felt. An imperial bodyguard's very existence was to be at all times both a lingering warning and an outright threat.

  The Empress walked approximately fifty meters, before the eyes of two hundred soldiers and roughly five hundred civilians, and then she came to an abrupt halt—just a scant few feet away from the towering figure of the Primach himself.

  Silence. The vulture spread its wings and took flight; below, a small army of soldiers kept perfectly statuesque and still. In that moment the whole world was holding its breath.

  (Your world, anyway.)

  And then the First Pillar put his left hand to the rightmost quadrant of his chest, and extended the other with palm upturned, and bowed his head in a gesture of deep respect. "Empress of mighty Vokia," the Primarch intoned. "On behalf of the Shalasharan Royal Government Apparatus, I—First Pillar Ralankasado Qelas—bid you welcome to the thirty-thrice-hallowed city of Shalar. And I thank you, personally, for accepting my invitation to come and speak."

  Ibis's expression was utterly blank; a statue, a cipher, the forbidding wall presented by the sheer face of a cliff. It was a total departure from the playful and almost childish version of Ibis with whom Panther had spent the past few days sharing a carriage, and now it was this unsettling facsimile who said, in formal and soft-spoken register: "Primarch Elketteres Qelas. Primarch Yaujunasavan Daret." Her dull-silver eyes settled, at last, upon the High Celebrant himself. "Primarch Ralankasado Qelas. On behalf of the Everlasting Vokian Dominion, I thank you all for this most auspicious of welcomes."

  All delivered perfectly gracious and polite, and with great respect. All spoken in a perfectly inoffensive flat register. And yet: Ibis did not bow. Ibis did not offer even the barest imitation of a smile. Ibis said every word of this straight-backed and straight-faced, even as the First Pillar's own head remained cowed.

  A brief, foreboding beat of silence elapsed between the thousand-or-so attendees. And then Ralan lifted his head, and gestured back to the palace with one meaty arm and a politician's warm smile wrinkling his beard. "Now then," he said. "Here, in Shalashar, the sun is no great bestower of life. It is a foe, an adversary to be bested, and at all times a punishment we are forced to endure. That is to say—I invite you to join me inside, Empress Ibis, in a place of cold air and warm drink."

  "By all means," replied the Empress, with tone still flat and expression ever-unchanging. "I am eager to begin."

  So the Empress and the Primarch went, behind sealed and Sorcery-muted doors, and talked. In truth there was little to discuss, for Ibis and Ralan had been in contact with one another ever since the very day of the previous Emperor's demise. It was Ibis who had brought the idea of a truce to the table, and it was—eventually—Ralan who had invited her here, to hammer out all the last-minute details in person. Whatever the two of them agreed upon today would be brought to the broader Xonian Fulcrum—the tenuous assembly of every militarily significant nation-city on the continent—and be ratified, hopefully, within just a few month's time. Thus the temporary ceasefire between Vokia and Shalashar would turn to a truce everlasting, and perhaps—in the far, distant future—even a legitimate alliance might flower from there.

  But all this depended, mind you, on the temperament of these two particular individuals. Two particular individuals who had written to one another with great alacrity, yes—but had never actually met.

  So on the negotiations went. There was an implicit understanding that Shalashar would be making the majority of the concessions, given Vokia's position as the dominant military power (and the necessity of that fragile lie, that Vokia was on the verge of 'winning' the war), and these concessions the First Pillar made graciously and without strong objection. Ibis never pushed too far; Ralan, in turn, was never too fervent in his pushes back. Intellectually, the two were of one mind—and yet still there remained a certain and steadily-building friction between them. They were opposites in every sense of the word: Ralan, the giant, and Ibis the frail ghost of a woman. And whilst the Primarch grew increasingly sociable, and increasingly began to let down his guard, still did Ibis remain but a strange and stony statue of a human being, her every word delivered in precisely toneless monotone. Slowly but surely, and perhaps unintentionally, Ibis was shutting her ostensible ally out.

  Things came to a head, then, when Ibis held up one slender finger and declared: "I have one more request. Non-negotiable."

  Ralan's eyes flicked up from the ledger in which he had been momentarily absorbed; brow furrowed, he merely grunted for the Empress to continue.

  "Your seventh son," said Ibis. "Tiger. I want him." And to that, Ralan's eyes—having returned to the ledger—flicked right back to the Empress, this time with far greater urgency.

  "In what capacity?" asked the Primarch, slowly. Warily.

  "As a consort," Ibis replied. "He and I shall bear a child of dual lineages, for the sake of further strengthening our alliance."

  Ralan's eyes narrowed. He put down the ledger. He declared: "You demand one of my own progeny as payment?"

  "It is common knowledge that you've long held the seventh prince in disfavor," said Ibis, with a dismissive wave of one hand—to which the Primarch's eyes narrowed only even further. "I have a use for Tiger. You do not. I see no reason why—"

  "And what use is that?" the Primarch interrupted sharply.

  Ibis paused. Then, she answered: "It is as I said. The child's existence will strengthen this truce, and it opens doors to a military alliance down the road—or, at the very least, some manner of cordial socioeconomic relationship."

  Bear in mind that this was, to some degree, the truth—but it was also almost entirely a lie. It was certainly not the right answer to Ralan's question.

  I knew the right answer, of course. But for the sake of a good story I shall not say.

  The Primarch sat with this demand for quite some time. Ibis, too, sat there with back straight and hands folded and face the picture of impassivity. All the while Ralan had one palm on his chin, his mouth obscured by hand and beard both, and his stark-crimson eyes were rooted nowhere but a blank spot at the edge of the table. And slowly, with each and every passing second, the air between them was growing quiet and still.

  Finally the big man put down his hand. He sat up. His eyes locked firmly onto her own; he interlaced tattooed fingers upon the table before him and said, quite a bit colder than before, "Very well." And then, just as icily: "I must say, Ibis, that you are nothing like what I expected."

  "Oh?" Ibis, cocking her head to one side in blank-eyed fashion. So very much like her namesake. "Please, go on. I am always interested to hear the ways in which others perceive me."

  So polite, she was. So perfectly, unerringly polite. "Your father," said Ralan, in a strictly-controlled tone of voice, "was my most hated enemy. He butchered my people and tread carelessly upon my lands for nearly a decade. The day of his death was a day of great celebration for my family, and for my city. But—I must concede, still, that Sharo Zhon was a man of tremendous presence. A loud, boisterous, brilliant man. A man of great strength."

  "You knew him better than I did," noted Ibis—and there was, then, the briefest and most infinitesimal flicker of a smile upon her face. Or perhaps it was merely a trick of the candlelit shadows. "So," inquired the Empress, tilting her head to the other side, "what am I?"

  Ralan's hands tightened. "Small," was the word he settled upon, in the end. "You, Ibis, are very small."

  "Are you sure?" asked Ibis, pleasantly. "I thought for certain you were going to say weak."

  "Yes," the Primarch rumbled. "Weak." And then, before she could get in another word: "For the past few weeks, Ibis, I've been hearing a very interesting and persistent rumor. A rumor that some already treat as outright fact."

  "Please," said Ibis. "I do enjoy rumors. Especially when concerning myself."

  The candlelight flickered.

  "They say," said Ralan, lowly, "that your bodyguard, Panther, is also your lover." He paused, let those words sink in—briefly scanned the Empress's visage for any sort of reaction—then continued: "How terribly sad, if true. It's like something out of an old Makovian tragedy. You'll never be able to marry her, as I'm sure you feel she deserves, nor will you ever even be allowed to love her openly. It must be so arduous, so very suffocating to conceal your affliction at every waking moment. How desperate you must be to steal away any private moment that you can—like the carriage ride here, I'm sure." The Primarch's ruby eyes seemed almost to glitter beneath the shadow of his own brow. His voice was steady and calm all the while, like a wolf padding after wounded prey. "To think," Ralan concluded, with great sympathy, "that even the Empress of mighty Vokia would be forced to live with such fear in her heart. I find that very ironic, Ibis. And—I must confess—deeply, deeply amusing as well."

  The pendulum concealed in the far wall swung back and forth, back and forth—unseen but always audible, lurching in seasick rhythm whilst the lamplight flickered and Ibis, with hands folded demurely in her lap, looked out at her opponent from across the table with nothing short of total tranquility. The Primarch's words passed through, above, and around her—they could not reach her, could not touch her. She displayed no sign of even having heard them at all.

  Until—

  An upwards tug, there, at the corner of her mouth. Small, and subtle, and all but imperceptible—but the effect was unmistakable. In the span of a single second, Ibis's expression transformed from that of calm placidity to something droll, and sardonic, and deeply unimpressed. And where once there had sat an empty vessel, there now sat a woman of startling presence indeed.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Then Ibis arched one eyebrow and scoffed: "Please, Ralan. As though mere tribadism would be enough to see me ousted."

  "True," the Primarch conceded smoothly, with a gesture of one palm—concealing his sudden disorientation as best he could. "Many of the old taboos are indeed shifting and fading away, as all traditions are wont to do. But still, Empress, isn't it all so fantastically dangerous?" Ralan leaned forward, and for the first time his grin was clearly visible as the whites of his teeth shone out through the dark, forbidding obelisk of his beard. This time, when the Primarch spoke, the edge in his voice was unmistakable: "Putting the love of you life in a position like that."

  To which Ibis, with no warning, just outright snickered aloud. And it was no great display of amusement, no, not some crass or booming row of laughter. It was instead a lean, and cruel, and callous little thing—but it was also the subtle undercurrent of genuine mirth running through it that saw Ralan's grin slowly transform to all but a lip-curling snarl. A smile no longer; instead, only an unconscious baring of teeth.

  "Do you know, Ralan," the Empress prompted, with venomous amusement, "what it is that I love most about Panther? Would you care to hear my single favorite thing about her?"

  "Prattle on as you wish," dismissed the Primarch, to which the other woman's sneer only sharpened.

  "Panther," Ibis declared, with great satisfaction, "can take care of herself."

  "How romantic."

  "Panther worries about me, Ralan—never the other way around."

  "I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear you say that."

  "Of course she would. What—do you think she has a problem with this arrangement?" The Empress scoffed. "Please. She loves it. To serve, to devote herself. To be a truly exceptional instrument on my behalf." The Empress folded her skinny arms, tilted her head forward, and offered to her opposite the most utterly sanguine of smiles. "If you truly believe that you can use my bodyguard as a proxy to threaten me, Ralan, than clearly you have not seen my bodyguard fight. Panther could kill a thousand of your half-rate assassins in my name, and she'd be tremendously happy to do so." A pause—and then she repeated, with even greater venom: "You think you can threaten the love of my life? You're delusional. You don't have the caliber of fighter required to threaten my wife."

  And then Ibis was finished. And then Ibis just folded her hands and smiled, politely, at her opponent.

  At the far end of the table, Ralan was leaned back in his chair with eyes still slitted and mouth drawn to a thin line. His whole body was dangerously still; his tattoo-crossed hands had curled to fists, and now his right eye seemed all but liable to burst into flame. Ralan was a Gravitic Sorcerer of prodigious ability, after all, and now he was right there on the edge of doing something truly disastrous.

  You must understand that Ralan Qelas was not a man prone to anger or fits of rage. Ralan Qelas was a master of his emotions; a hard, rational pragmatist, a man whose eyes were entirely unclouded by the likes of vengeance or superstition. He was a far-sighted man, a man of admirable restraint. And yet—still, when he did finally reply, were his teeth grit tight together. "Five minutes ago," he growled, "your tribadism was but a salacious and unfounded rumor. Now you have transmuted it to fact."

  "And five minutes ago you had a powerful card in your back pocket," Ibis dismissed, almost playfully, as though she were actually beginning to enjoy this hostile repartee. Perhaps she was. "You should have kept it close—but instead you've played it so early, so brazenly, and with so very little to gain."

  "No," the big man rumbled, leaning all the way forward once more. "I wanted you to know, o Empress of Vokia, that your invincible armor harbors a glaring flaw. So long as Panther lives—" he pointed to the door behind which the bodyguard awaited, "—we will always be able to reach out, whenever we like—" he withdrew his hand, pointed one meaty finger straight down at the table, "—and touch you." And that second-to-last word was emphasized there, at the very end, by the simultaneous thunk of finger jabbing against solid stone.

  To which Ibis just leaned in as well, and flashed her most vapid and soulless variation of smile. "I am certain that this treaty will come as quite the relief for your people." The Empress leaned even further, and batted her eyelashes, and added with scathing satisfaction: "You're welcome, Ralan."

  "Please," Ralan scowled. "Neither Vokia nor Shalashar can sustain this conflict any further. Don't act like you're doing us a favor."

  "Yet I implore you to ponder the alternative. Take careful note of the fact that my half-brother absolutely lusts for this war."

  "As do many powerful factions of the Governmental Apparatus. Understand, Ibis, that I too am but the barrier to something far worse."

  "Whole factions! What grand lunacy."

  "Not lunacy, no," said the First Pillar, who settled back once more and folded his hands. He had gone now from cold fury to something hard, and grim, and strictly composed. "We Shalasharans are a people with long memories. Many can still recall a time when the world was far smaller...and we were far, far larger. Your 'mighty' Vokia is but a fledgling nation, Ibis. A drunken child wreaking havoc. But, Shalashar—Shalashar was here from the very beginning. And you would do very well to keep that in mind."

  This time, it was Ibis's expression that shifted—her smile not quite fading so much as it did freeze upon her face, whilst her eyes went glassy with a sudden surge of contempt. "You are fools," she declared, darkly, "to cling so desperately to a dead past."

  "Of course you would say that," Ralan scoffed right back. "The outsider. The tribadist. The errant daughter who thieved her father's throne. No wonder you're so eager to discard your own history."

  And to that, the Empress stood. She rose very calmly to her feet, pushed her chair back, then stepped aside and scooted said chair back into place. She reached up, straightened her collar, adjusted her cuffs. And then those twin pools of silver flicked to the Primarch whilst her head turned away, and thus the Empress regarded him only from out the very corner of her eye.

  "Damn the past," said Ibis, then, so quietly that the Ralan almost did not hear. "I intend to chart a new course."

  You should be well aware, by now, that I am strictly opposed to sharing Ibis's secrets in any capacity. Nevertheless, I shall tell you this and this alone: in that moment, the brilliant and terribly machinery of Ibis's mind was whirring and chugging and spinning along at a breakneck pace. In that moment, the scheme unfolding within her head was vast, and audacious, and would have entangled the whole continent of Xon—had its architect lived to see it to fruition.

  I will tell you something else, too. Those words—I intend to chart a new course—were the words that Ralan Qelas would remember for the rest of his life.

  They were, in a certain sense, the words that would change everything.

  "I see," was all that the Primarch said, then. To that.

  And so, just a half-hour later it was done. Ibis emerged from that secluded chamber unscathed, much to Panther's silent relief—and she and Ralan decided, shaking hands there in the hall, that the newly-finalized treaty would be ratified at a neutral location with all Xonian leaders in attendance, via a ceremony of pomp and spectacle worthy of such a historic agreement between two such longstanding foes. At long last, then, the people of Xon would know peace.

  For a time.

  Outside, there hung the all-seeing moon in place of that blind, roaring idiot you call the sun. The sky was a black ocean awash with so many glittering pinpricks of light; the desert breeze was cool and gentle, and nothing like the sweltering death of before.

  "Empress," intoned two of the Sathai in perfect unison, as Ibis and Panther approached.

  "We depart for Kaino at once," Ibis ordered, with little preamble. "Governor Naok has agreed to host our delegation for the duration of the night; come morning, we shall make haste on a return to Vokia."

  "By your will, Empress," came the automatic response. So Panther swung open the door and stepped into the carriage, then helped Ibis up in curt and professional fashion, and then—finally—the two of them were alone. What followed from there was essentially an enormous releasing of tension; it was only afterwards, as the two sat there eyes closed and heads leaned together, that either of them actually spoke.

  "So, Empress," said Panther, opening one eye, "how did it go?" There were times when she said that word—Empress—like an affliction, or an obstacle, or simply an unfortunate fact of life—and there were times, like now, where she pronounced it with great satisfaction indeed.

  Ibis's own eyes slitted open; she smiled, leaned over, and kissed the other woman on the cheek. "Well," mused the Empress, who always took these sorts of questions very seriously, "the smart answer would be that it's too early to tell."

  "Uh huh. Now tell me the real answer."

  "My opinion," said Ibis, trying not to laugh at her partner's exaggerated deadpan, "is that things went very, very well. I mean, we have the treaty. It's done. I'm the woman who just ended the Seven Years' War—which means you and I are a great deal safer than we were before."

  "Never had any doubt," said Panther, to which Ibis flicked her on the forehead. "And how was he, hmm? This First Pillar asshole?" She leaned in and flexed one arm. "He give you any trouble? You want me to go talk some sense into him?"

  "Stop, stop, I absolutely cannot take you seriously—" Ibis giggled—declining to inform Panther that the man in question had implicitly threatened her life a mere hour ago. Nor did she make clear that the secret of their love now lie in the hands of a most dangerous and powerful individual indeed. Instead, her reply was only this: "Ralan is manageable. A bit easier to rile than I expected, perhaps. There exists a great contradiction at the heart of that man, eating away at him. Pulling him in directions he does not truly understand." Then she just shrugged her shoulders, and concluded, "The only real risk is that one day, the contradiction within him might see Ralan acting against his own interests. That's what I have to watch out for. Beyond that?" Ibis trailed off, suddenly consumed by an intense bout of consternation, and Panther waited very patiently for the Empress to finish. Then, "...no," Ibis concluded, firmly. "I just can't see any scenario where I'm not the preferable alternative to Taro."

  "The shit I took this morning was preferable to Taro," Panther noted.

  "Do not indirectly compare me to shit!" the Empress complained.

  "Okay, okay," Panther chuckled, putting up her hands. "One more question, then I'm done. Okay? Ibis, my love—she leaned in, put one hand over the Empress's own, "did you end up having any fun today?"

  "Panther," Ibis gasped, mock-offended, "who do you think I am?" And then she grinned, and leaned in to meet her, and now their faces were very close as she breathed, into that gentle twilit night:

  "Of course I had fun."

  Two years later, whilst laying on the polished floor of a Governor's kitchen, Panther decided that she was ready to die.

  Her dagger was gone, her sabre was gone; her cloak was splayed out beneath her like some sad, wilted shadow. She was cut up and bleeding and bruised in what felt like a hundred different places. And her arm-bracer—more specifically the trick blade concealed within—was pinned beneath the heel of an old man's boot.

  It had taken Panther all of thirty seconds to realize that she was horrendously outmatched. On paper, the outcome made little sense—she was a twenty-something former athlete in superlative physical condition, quite literally fighting in her prime. He was a weary, out-of-shape man somewhere between his fifties and sixties, and he was also very drunk. Panther was faster, stronger, significantly sharper—and yet. Fighting Casso had felt like fighting a damned clairvoyant; superior reflexes meant nothing when the old man always knew exactly what she was going to do. It was almost supernatural. His defense was flawless, and effortless, and his offense was beyond anything that Panther could possibly hope to endure. And he was a scrapper to boot. So indeed they had scrapped, for about five frenetic minutes, going from knives and swords to whatever pots or pans or cleavers or tenderizers were on hand and then, finally, the conflict had been resolved with naught but boots and bare fists.

  It had been the hardest fight of Panther's life. And now it was over; now everything was over, and in that moment Panther was so broken in so many ways that all she could feel was relief.

  Relief, because death meant no more pain. No more sorrow. No more hardship, or struggle, or strife. Panther's whole life had been one long hardship; at times the ex-bodyguard had felt that it was not until her first encounter with Ibis that she had been properly born into the world of human beings. Certainly she had never known such things as happiness, or security, or kindness, until the arrival of that fateful day. And so it followed, then, that when Ibis had died—well, that Panther had died with her. And that everything after the fact was just...pointless meandering. Just epilogue on a story that had already concluded. In Panther's eyes, Ibis alone had been the world's main character. And without the protagonist, well, what use was there in the supporting cast sticking around?

  Panther was hurting. And very, very tired. And so it was that only the smallest acquiescence was required for the ex-bodyguard to close her eyes, as that looming figure—drunken Casso Vos, with a well-polished kitchen knife gleaming like a shard of pure starlight in his hand—bent down, and leaned in to finish the job.

  I wanted to speak. I wanted to intervene.

  I could not.

  I would not.

  Panther's eyes were well and truly shut. She did not imagine the blade, ghosting its way through empty air to meet with the flesh of her throat. She did not dream of the cold, surgical focus in the old man's eyes. She thought of nothing at all; only immersed herself in a sea of endless black, where there was neither sight nor sound nor color nor touch nor taste. No hot, no cold. No hurt. Only...

  And then it seizes her. Or—perhaps it is better to say that it strikes her. Yes, strikes her, in the way that the thunderbolt strikes the tree. Electricity! Suddenly Panther's whole brain and body are alight; suddenly her heart is pounding like a madman against the bars of his cell, and suddenly there is seared upon her frontal lobe these following words of inarguable, indisputable revelation:

  I WANT TO LIVE

  She doesn't understand why. She can't even fathom why. It defies that whole chain of ruinous, grief-afflicted logic that brought her here. I DON'T WANT TO DIE is one thing, yes, but at least there is some clear manner of biological imperative in that. It is in the nature of all living things to abhor death. But—I WANT TO LIVE? Panther can't countenance that. Ibis is dead and Panther has nothing. Panther is hurt, Panther is exhausted, and Panther knows that there will only be more hurt and exhaustion to come.

  So Panther, in that moment, has no idea why she feels the way that she does.

  But that's no problem at all. Panther doesn't need to understand.

  All Panther needs to do is move.

  Adrenaline surges; those slate-grey eyes snap open wide as saucers and suddenly Panther is a blur, ripping free of the captive arm-bracer and rolling into a backwards somersault and then leaping right back to her feet with heart pounding, hair a disheveled mess, blood running in an open river across her face, and—most importantly—one of her last two throwing-knives clutched defiantly in hand, its point jutting out like an accusation to any that would dare wish her harm.

  To which Casso just glances up—blinks once, twice, in mild surprise—then rises to his own feet as well, and says, "Y'know, kid, if you'd kept your eyes shut for three more seconds I woulda cut your throat and been done with you. But you didn't. So..." he trails off, for a moment, then sighs aloud: "Alright, fine. Whatever. You pass." And without further ado he just reaches into his coat, trades knife for flask, and then takes yet another long and greedy swig.

  Panther doesn't say a word; Panther's knife just turns to a blur of grey, clearing the space between them in a manner of milliseconds, to which Casso simply raises his flask and deflects it, for the second time, with a resounding metal sprang!

  "Hang on, hang on," the old man mutters now, totally nonplussed, as Panther draws her last knife and charges in with no hesitation at all. "I'm supposed to show this thing to you..."

  And then, from his coat, Casso produces a simple piece of jewelry. A necklace, twine-bound, with a dull amethyst embedded amidst a carving of yellow-aged bone. And it is at this point that Panther, for the second time in the past sixty seconds, is struck by lightning.

  "Where did you—?!" she blurts, skidding to a halt, hands darting on instinct for the pendant hanging around her neck. She finds it right where it should be, of course, and now her eyes are darting back and forth, back and forth, between the necklace in the old man's hand and the necklace in her own.

  Identical. In every possible way.

  "Like I said," Casso shrugs, "I'm supposed show you this thing. If you pass, anyway. So—hey. You calm now? You good to go? Because there's a good chance that right now, your pal Tiger—" he jerks a thumb straight up, "— is either getting abducted by that crazy fuckin' Incipitor, or getting himself fucking killed by some old drinking buddies of mine. So..." He raises his eyebrows. "Hello, Panther? You with me? For fuck's sake, are you gonna play along or what?"

  "What...?" Panther just mutters, in wide-eyed incomprehension, as the man who nearly executed her mere moments ago now holds aloft an exact replica of her dead lover's necklace, all whilst speaking to her like none of this should be a surprise. Like she's supposed to be in on all of this. Like Panther is supposed to already know.

  "Who the hell are you?" she manages, finally.

  To which Casso just burps aloud and replies: "Me? I'm nobody. Just a friend of a friend, that's all."

  End Credits Theme

  ELECTRICITY!!!